Anyone who’s studied a foreign language probably knows the feeling: You’re passing your tests and understanding the teacher. Then, you happen to meet a native speaker at a party, and you’re lost.
That’s what happened to Bradley Grochocinski, who arrived in Paris as a college junior studying linguistics, with eight years of French under his belt.
He created his own crash course, focusing on the speech patterns and cultural references he’d need to know if he wanted to make friends in gay bars or talk to strangers on the bus. He watched social media videos, listened to newscasts and chatted with the people who tried to sell him things on the street. “I re-taught myself French from the ground up,” Grochocinski said.
Now, with fellow UW-Madison alum Kyle Schneider as co-founder, he’s devised a way to not only streamline that process but make it available to people around the world through a web application called Sygmatic. It will launch later this month with Spanish, French and German content. Arabic, Mandarin and English will be next.